For those of us who have grown accustomed to having our most trivial inquiries answered in seconds by our favorite search engine, not knowing the answer to a question instantly can be frustrating. I hit my personal rock bottom of information impatience the day I actually pulled out my smartphone to search for the answer to Final Jeopardy while the contestants were still writing their answers on the television screen. The college application process can seem like an archaic and slow motion process for the need-to-know-now generation of students who are just graduating from high school. Even though most colleges and universities now offer fast and easy online applications, the acceptance procedure at some schools can still take several weeks or even months, and is often painfully slow. After all the anticipation and uncertainty, when the school’s letter arrives in the mail, it should come with a sense of some finality: acceptance or denial, and at least the agony of waiting and wondering is done. But what if you receive a letter that neither confirms your acceptance nor denies your entry to the school? What if the letter informs you that you have been placed on the college’s “wait list”? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: college admission, college admissions, waitlist, WiseChoice
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So you want to apply early to college? That’s fantastic. I did. It was a good time. While many of my friends spent the winter gnawing on their cuticles waiting for their Dream School to accept them, I spent the winter being lackadaisical about pretty much everything. It was lovely and my only worry was my AP test(s) at the end of the year. I’m sounding like some sort Class A overachiever, and believe me I was not, but I knew in my heart of hearts that American University was the school that I wanted to attend. Applying early decision just meant knowing earlier rather than perpetuating a cycle of anxiety.

I was the type of person for whom the Early Decision option was made for. I had spent years thinking about college; specifically how far I could get away from Upstate NY without ending up at the University of Fiji. There were spreadsheets made with pros vs. cons. I am freely admitting to the world that I would spend night after night researching my top choices and practicing essays, and wondering if I could grow to love Ithaca (I applied to Cornell) even in February. The answer was a resounding no, I could not. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: applying early, college admission, early decision
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